What More Do You Need?
By Jim McCraw
I would like to ask of all those who voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election, what more do you need? You were lied to, repeatedly, for months, about election fraud that didn’t happen. Lied to not just by the president, but by dozens of his political allies and members of his own family. He lost. Legally, and by a lot, whether in the popular vote or in the Electoral College. He lost. But he was so overcome by ego and power madness that he could not accept the loss, so he invented The Big Lie, and ensnared millions of people in it.
He and his minions tried every legal and extralegal method to get the election overturned. More than 60 cases alleging election fraud were thrown out of court. His own attorney general characterized Trump’s election fraud allegation as “bullshit.”
Then the pressure started on state elections officials to either recount the votes or, if that didn’t work, change the slate of electors. Tuesday, a trio of elected Republican officials from Arizona and Georgia testified that they had been pressured directly by Trump and/or his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to violate their oaths of office and try to change the outcome in their states.
In recent weeks, we have seen a bipartisan committee of the House investigating the January 6th Capitol riot show dozens of pieces of incriminating evidence that the sitting president of the United States of America lied to his audience again and again about a stolen election, then, when all other efforts failed to change the outcome of the election, he tried to pressure the vice-president to intervene in the Electoral College process to throw out the results and keep him in power. When Vice President Pence refused, he exhorted an army of his supporters gathered in Washington to overrun the Capitol. Violence and death followed the Big Lie into the building.
For me, that’s all that matters. He did it, we all know he did it, and we will all be either a lot older or dead by the time he is prosecuted for his crime against the American people, the American system, and the Constitution, the single worst crime ever perpetrated by a sitting president. Prosecutions of anyone else resulting from these hearings are gravy.
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Trump's Fake Electors, Threats of Violence and Death
By Ken Zino
In what was the most emotional hearing so far, the Select Committee presented a devastating case against ex-President Trump and the intimidation and mob violence that was central to the plan to overthrow President Biden’s legal election. There was and is an ongoing human cost to people who were trying to do the right thing. This includes a stunning number of Republican officials and officeholders who refused to violate their oath of office. Thank goodness because that is what it is; Goodness. Civic goodness.
Here I yield to Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), who once again put the case against the ex-president clearly. “In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level…
“First, today you will hear about calls made by President Trump to officials of Georgia and other states ... keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he made those calls -- he had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense…
“Second, you will hear about a number of threats and efforts to pressure state officials to reverse the election outcome. Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence. He did not condemn them; he made no effort to stop them; he went forward with his fake allegations anyway.
“This is serious. We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence,” Cheney said.
Now, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): “Federal district judge David Carter, said former President Trump and others likely violated multiple federal laws by engaging in this scheme -- including conspiracy to defraud the United States. You will hear evidence of the former president and his top advisor’s direct involvement in key elements of this plot, or what Judge Carter called a coup in search of a legal theory.”
As I said earlier this despicable mess will need the Justice Department to act. So here we are: Was there a conspiracy to defraud the United States?
It comes down to a reading of the DOJ manual that says it’s illegal for an individual to disrupt a government function by deceit, craft or trickery.
The first person to be in indicted for fraud against the United States should be Donald Trump. Others should follow.